Ill Wind

"Just figured that out, did you?"

I ignored him and drew an arrow the opposite direction. "Wind moves west to east, against rotation. So why is the wind coming out of the east?"

This time he didn't say anything. That was fine; I wasn't listening anyway. "It's coming out of the east because there's something rotating—" My stick drew a spiral somewhere over where I guessed we were. " — that's changing the direction of the wind. Rotation means a storm."

He looked over at my mother. She looked back. I figured the silent conversation had something to do with what a freak I was, what the hell were they going to do with me, and on and on and on. Not like I hadn't already said it and wondered it myself.

I drew some wavy lines in the sand next to the spiral. "Cirrus clouds form way up high—ice crystal clouds, ru

A freshening eastern breeze frayed my hair out of its braid and plastered strands to my sweating face.

Somewhere out there, beyond the trees, beyond the place where morning started, I could feel it growing, pulling energy from the collision of warm and cold air, condensing water and energy, sucking micro-drops together to form mist, mist to form clouds, clouds to form rain.

I closed my eyes and I could almost taste it, cloud-soft on my tongue, the taste of brass and ozone and cool, clear water. God, it felt good. Tingles all the way inside, deep down. I'd never been out in the open before to a storm forming. It had a raw, wild power I'd never expected.

"Bullshit," Albert said bluntly, and laughed. "Pretty good try, Jo. Hey, you've got quite the con artist there, Nancy."

My mother wasn't smiling, and she wasn't laughing. She looked at me gravely, thumbs hooked in the straps of her backpack, and shifted from one foot to the other. Mom wasn't used to hiking, either, but she hadn't complained, hadn't talked about blisters or being thirsty or being tired.

"Are you quite the con artist, Jo?" she asked me. I didn't say anything. She turned back to Albert. "We'd better start back."

"Oh, come on, Nancy, you don't buy this stuff, do you? She's fifteen years old, she's not some damn weatherman. You can tell the weather around here for days around, anyway. Clear as a bell, that's what this is."

"There's high pressure to the south," I said, lacing up my boots. "Wall cloud forming over the horizon to the east. It'll be bad by nightfall—it's moving fast. Warm air always moves faster than cold."

"We should start back," Mom repeated. "Now."

And that was that. Albert the Bear grumbled and muttered, but we started back down the ridge. The first darkness edged over the eastern horizon, like early night, at just after three in the afternoon, and then it flowed like spilled ink, staining the sky. Albert shut up about coddling my fear of nature and devoted his breath to making good time. We scrambled down sheer slopes, jogged down inclines, edged carefully past crumbling paths over open gorges. People talk about nature as a mother, but to me she's always been Medea, ready and willing to slaughter her children. Every sheer drop we navigated was an open mouth, every jagged rock a naked tooth.

I wasn't attuned to the land, but even I could sense the power in it, the anger, the desire to smash us like the intruding predators we were. I felt it from the storm, too; the storms that made it into cities were less self-aware, more instinctual. This one pulsed with pure menace.

Warmer air breathed through the trees, rattled branches, and fluttered leaves. The breeze picked up and it carried the sharp scent of rain.

"Faster," I panted as we hit easier terrain. We ran for it as the storm clouds unfurled octopus tentacles overhead and the rain came down in a punishing silver curtain. Overhead, lightning forked purple white, and without a city to frame it, lightning was huge and powerful, taller than the mountain it struck. Thunder hit like a physical body blow. It rattled through my skin, my cartilage, bones. We're mostly water, our bodies. Sound travels in waves.

Above us on the ridge, a tree went up like a torch.

Albert was yelling something about a ranger station. I could barely see. The rain stung like angry wasps, and under the trees the blackness was complete. Better not to stay under the trees anyway, too much risk of drawing another lightning strike.

Pins and needles across my back, at the top of my head.

"Get down!" I yelled, and rolled into a ball on the ground, trying to present the smallest exposure to the storm. I could feel it now—it was like a blind man with an ax hunting a mouse. It wanted me. It was drawn to me.

It hated me.

Lightning hit close, very close. I felt the concussion and heard something that was too loud to be just a sound, it was a force with energy and life of its own.

I was sobbing now because I knew the next time it would get me. It knew where I was. It could smell my fear.

Somebody grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. We ran through the darkness, slipping on grass and mud. Deer burst out of the darkness and across our path like white ghosts fleeing a graveyard.

We made it to the ranger station, and I realized only when I saw Mom and Albert were already there, wrapped in blankets and shivering, that the person who'd dragged me up and out from under the storm wasn't anyone I knew.

She was small and golden ski

"Nice day for a walk," the other ranger said, the one handing Mom and Albert steaming cups of coffee. My rescuer gri

"Yup," she agreed. "Just about perfect."

She glanced over at me, and I felt it like a current humming between us. We were the same, shared something fundamental.

The storm wasn't hunting me. It was hunting us both.

"You should be more careful," she said. "Some people just aren't cut out for communing with nature."

"What's your excuse?" I shot back. She lifted one shoulder.

"Somebody's got to be on the front lines," she said. "Estrella Almondovar. Star, for short."

I told her my name. We shook hands. She got me a blanket and, instead of coffee, hot cocoa. As she handed it over, she lowered her voice and said, "You have a notice? From the Association?"

"Yeah. I'll have an Intake Board at eighteen."

"Well, don't wait. Start getting the training now, like me—this is my internship. You need it. I've seen the Park react like this to only one other person before."

"Who?" I asked. She gave me a teasing little wouldn't-you-like-to-know smile.

"You don't know him," she said. "But his name is Lewis."

She went back to the cabin window and stood watching the fire up on the ridge, the one that the first lightning strike started. As I watched, it flickered, sizzled, and went out.

That's when I knew. She wasn't a Weather Warden, not like me. She had power over fire.

From that day, we were friends. I don't really know why; we didn't have all that much in common, beyond the obvious, but we had a kind of vibe. Energy. We resonated to the same frequencies.

We ended up roomies at Princeton, shared a thousand joys and tragedies and triumphs. She was the best friend I ever had, and it looked for a while like we were going to live charmed lives forever. Smart, beautiful, gifted. Two peas in a pod. Perfect.